Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

like to welcome everybody to the public safety committee meeting for February 11th like to call the meeting to order do I have a motion to accept the agenda so move I would like to before we do that let me back up add a discussion on the mutual Aid agreements for shackle Island and number one volunteer fire department so with that may I get another motion to accept the agenda yes with that change in two seconds second all in favor I I motion carries we don't have anyone signed up for public comments we don't have any we have a resolution to discuss would you like to start the discussion or would you like to Sure uh so Steve Frost who's been involved in sha volunteer part department for a long time uh he contacted Chief Bush uh about uh helping out in uh seeing if he could uh uh meet with the board there and figure out a way that the city and the volunteer fire department could work together uh Steve's is a good guy like I said he's been involved in for many many years and um had a business in henders for a long time and uh uh so he reached out to he and chief Bush talked actually last week and then followed up um a couple times since then and uh uh he let us know that they had a board meeting last night and uh and and uh agreed that they could sign the agreement uh um the agreement similar to what Goodville had and uh uh so we looked at that and realized that the board had said an expiration date for them to do that uh and that was November 30th of 2023 youall correct me if I'm good good oh I did say like uh number one okay thank you thank you um and so I feel like I need to come back to the board and since y'all were meeting tonight and the board was Voting tonight and since there is

some urgency here I felt like we should bring it forward now and has our attorney looked at these agreements he wrote them he wrote is our insurance carrier are they okay with this do you know they good okay so this would cover us so and and let me say something a little bit something about that is that the reason that we initially felt like we needed something in writing even though we had been working with the volunteers for several several years the reason we felt like we need to do that is because we were contacted by Insurance SEC they wanted a written agreement that's correct right yes okay uh since then the state general assembly has changed their laws that we no longer need one however um we need things spelled out as far as what our responsibilities are what type calls we answer and what the uh uh what the what the chain of command is when we do that uh so even if you know this is just this is just just uh important to have regardless of insurance uh uh pushing us into it but at that meeting at the time before the law change we were required I was in that meeting yeah okay um I have a couple of questions on it after looking at it CH Bush are you comfortable sending your firefighters in our equipment to go Aid and these are you comfortable yes with the agreement and yes with the under go ahead I'm sorry go ahead with with the understanding uh in the mutual Aid law the way it is currently written if there is a need in the city limits of Hendersonville and a request comes from anybody not just shackle Island gulv gallon anybody if the need for our staff is to stay in the city we would obviously stay in the city we would not send anybody we have the right to refuse to go for Mutual Aid and

we would certainly exercise that based on the size of the event that was going on our city our city is number one to us and we're always going to be protecting our Citizens first and foremost with that being said if there's two identical requests so if Gallatin was to ask for something and shackle island or if shackle Island and number one was to ask if they had two different uh incidents going on in two different areas of sun County we would have the right to refuse to either go to either one of those or choose which one we were going to we're not obligated to send anything to either one of them uh based on the uh Chief officer's discretion of what size the emergency is and what the threat level is then we would make the decision to send whatever apparatus to the area that would need it the most and we can still maintain a high level of service within the city even with these contracts in place because you still have the option not go absolutely so what we'll do uh once you guys vote on these and decide to move forward with them uh we will out to our staff what the expectations are U so 2:00 in the morning if something happens uh we have not talked about this yet but originally I would suggest that we send an engine and a Truck and a supervisor and that'll still leave us a truck and six engine companies in the city uh and then once they get out there and do a fair assessment with whoever's out there if there's another need they can ask for it and that'll come through either myself or chief Edwards and then we'll notify these guys if we're going to send anything else outside the city uh but that'll be based on the assessment once they get out there connect to the uh officer in charge at shackle Island we fall under the instant command structure under unified command and we'll make decisions based off what's going on at that location at that time do you have any concerns with these

agreements absolutely not and are these uh is the number one volunteer fire department and shackle Island uh volunteer fire department are these contracts identical absolutely okay I don't have any more questions let me add something to they're also identical to what we what uh number one signed a year and two months ago with the change of the dates that's it if just for a point of clarification if I may there are one differences in them and that is what we're going to respond to automatically based on churches and those two locations and that is the only difference in them there's um let me get to that in number one's jurisdiction there is I think two churches raob withth Methodist Church and Rome Baptist uh that we will respond to automatically based on the situation there and then for uh shackle Island it is uh Beach and Hunter but we've already entered into a different agreement with them so that doesn't really matter uh but St John Baptist Long haola Church Beach PR larian and Shack Island Church of Christ that is the only differences in the number of locations that we will respond to automatically other than that these are identical let me ask this real quick so we'll have this agreement with the these are only two volunteer fire departments in neighbor IND bill right correct so we'd have with them but we don't have to have with neighboring cities we don't but what we what we're in the process of we've had one in the past with gon which is automatic Aid so like on the east side of town for say Lakes of Savannah saundersville Road because uh we have a station six is the closest station to there and they have a station four which is right off Station Camp so we're in the process of meeting with them next

week to bring something back to these two to automatically fill an aid there so we're not sending everything to the Far East side of town we'll provide automatic Aid to gon on their end of town towards us and they're going to help us on this east side of town if these guys agree to it and y'all agree to it when it comes before you and then same thing for like 12 Stones with gville uh we want to sit down with them that's a different monster because Metro is involved there and Goodville relies on Metro a lot Metro Nashville Fire And so there's a different monster to deal with with gville there where the Gallatin and us uh want to rely on each other on on this side of town any other questions do you have a question go right ahead um sometimes when you go out for a fire it requires multiple engines what that does it it really Robs a part of the city from responsive fire protection services so is there a limit that we'll only send one truck or one one unit and not Rob two or three stations and leave the city uh naked so to speak I I think what I've seen in the past and it doesn't mean that it can't be changed per discussion with them is up to half of our resources could leave the city if they are notified and they agree to that up to half half which would be basically three engines in one of our trucks that' be a Long Hollow Church situation correct that would be a high threat with a high high level of depending on the size of the building a commercial size building I cannot make that judgment on my own I have to get the assessment from whoever's in charge on the scene and then I feed back to them and they make that decision of whether we're allowed to do that obviously I think that they would rely on what I'm telling them uh we do not we're not obligated to do that we do not have to do that if we send an

engine in a truck and that's all we can afford to send then that's all we can have that's all we said again our community is our number one priority absolutely absolutely so is there anything in this contract that would preclude the city from making a claim on the the uh homeowners fire Insurance anything in here that prohibits it from my understanding you could do that with the people here right in the city limits if you wanted to there's a clause in everybody's homeowners insurance that you could for the fire for fire services for a fire I don't think there's anything that would preclude that I will tell you based on the conversation that was at the meeting last night at shackle Island they think that again for the seask group is that that's the city trying to step through the door and create an annexation issue that's not not the truth that's not even been discussed I don't know where the annexation thing keeps popping up because the city can't arbitrarily go out there and draw people in without the people wanting to be drawn in okay I so there's nothing to prude it uh I would hope that if we do have a situation like that that we would attempt to re try to recoup some of our expenses some of our surrounding jurisdictions I'll just take Williamson County for instance Franklin Williamson County um they have some agreements that they charge like a flat fee uh 250 bucks for an engine company to go outside the city if that's five times a year six times a year whatever uh I do know that Franklin and Williamson County have been in some negotiations about charging the county some money if the if Williamson County was to be needed Franklin City to come out to them uh I they have not reached an agreement on that well I'm not I'm not suggesting that we charge uh the county that's a whole different mod sure absolutely I wouldn't dare do that but since there is

an insurance policy you know I I I would like for us to try to recoup some of our expenses mayor if if we can uh the the last thing I would to ask is is the city of Hendersonville going to be the defacto Fire Protection Service for the county in in any of these in any of these volunteer stations volunteer District well the possibility is always for us to be there first yes sir because they are a volunteer department and they may not have anybody there um does that mean that every time we're going to be the the first ones there absolutely not does that mean that we may be the first ones there certainly there's a possibility for that how does the 911 ping different agencies so it's based on territories zones um so if a 911 calls comes in they get the address it pops up on the automatic CAD in front of the dispatcher and they know if it's city or county and they dispatch appropriately or accordingly based on that so how it works currently right now uh through the ECC is if they dispatch shackle Island they don't get a response they they tone them out again in 90 seconds I think it is something like that 90 seconds they get a response or don't get a response then they move to the next closest volunteer department how many minutes 90 seconds so a minute and a half yes yes so that's why we always talk about having a four four and a half minute response time it's important that we give that level of service they have 90 seconds to answer that I think it's 90 seconds um if they don't answer it then they go to the next closest volunteer department however if we enter into this inter local agreement I'll take the incident from Tuesday they would have they have to ask us request for us verbal through a radio dispatch that they want Henderson be to respond to that the volunteer fire department whoever's jurisdiction it is has to verbally ask for us so before we go we're going to get a request from the

volunteer that's that's how I read the the law the TCA yes sir okay if they don't request us then we don't go with the exception of automatics with the exception of the automatics because buildings that are automatic that churches and schools and and what's the scope of our coverage is it just for fire we're not doing medical calls no sir it's it's the call types for Mutual Aid or confirmed structure fires uh vehicle entra accidents with entra uh a drowning other than a swimming pool like a pond or something like that that we might have to send some of our dive team folks out a swift water rescue uh or a hazardous materials in those are the only five types that we're going to respond to so medical calls that we respond like in the city we will not be responding on a strict medical call I I hope I'm glad that we're not uh that's all Madam chairman thank you anybody else I would like to make a motion that we approve or send both of these to Bulma with approval do you want to send them with a positive recommendation positive recation I will second your motion all in favor I I motion carries okay next we are on other agenda items and we have um several items for discussion that are on the mayor's list important things for 2025 so I will let you start with that okay so uh a couple of them are better discussed from uh Chief Bush and chief Jones why don't we get to those first okay and that would probably and I would say those three are uh fire department call volume from senior living facilities uh free uh fire reinspection after a failed inspection and multiple Leaf responses to same address so probably C is probably the and I've got I've got material on other ones that I want to present but I think probably the

first one uh that I would recommend is fire department call volum from senior living facilities and Healthcare facilities okay that be cheap so I mean obviously uh the mayor reached out to me over a year ago and just wanted numbers of high residents or call types uh to local either whether it's residents or uh businesses and so I provided him that information uh we do have a high incident of responding to some senior living facilities uh we have kind of discussed uh you know what should we do about that um you know I don't think we've ever really landed on a decision on what to do and I think that's what he's wanting is just kind of some direction um I know in talking to other departments they have some of the same issues with going to like a 419 uh East Main which is a health care facility uh and we respond there quite a bit and there's certified nursing staff there and it could be Miss Jones or Mr Jones laying in the floor and all they need is lift assist to get out of the floor and go back be put back in their bed or whatever with no injuries if there's no transport um there's no really jurisdictions around that charge uh because they go over a certain amount of calls uh but I do know there's some conversations going on with other jurisdictions about charging for somebody that's a non-transport so if we get called to that 419 and we go to just pick Miss Jones up out of the floor then we turn around and and and bill that company for the lift assist because really and truly it's they should have the coverage with nursing staff to do their own lifting they're taught all that in nursing school they're taught all that in the health care facilities and they have other avenues to lift other than just using ours forces and manpower to do that that would be my recommendation but again we've not really sat down and landed on that I think he's just kind of want the conversation to go somewhere and figure out what's the best thing to do we do

have one house also that is a regular car that is decreased because I think that lady is uh no longer there okay we've not been to that place in quite some time and it was every other day for it was probably two and three times a day like to get her to the car for a doctor's visit and then bring her from the car back to the house inside the house after the doctor's visit do you think if you levied a fee to the facility that it would reduce them calling when when you needed to be called the the compassionate side of me wants to be able to try to go talk to these folks and let them know that this is a possibility I think an education piece to give them an opportunity to try to correct their problem before that happens would be crucial for us plus it gives us an opportunity to talk to them a little bit about what we're we're going to do if we can't find some resolution to that I do think that that's an an option for us to do uh with with everybody's permission but again you guys dictate what we do uh and we're certainly going to abide by that I mean I would hate for them to not call when they needed to call because the staff is going to get in trouble if they have too many calls and so we didn't send somebody because the staff didn't want to get written up yeah you don't want to get into those type situations for sure that's my concern with that and so by the way if y'all feel like we should just live with this and go forward especially on this one um and that this just just part of the service that we provide okay I'm not really going to push it but I feel like y'all at least need to know that we're in this situation with a couple of them I mean maybe talk and see if you could work something out but I don't want them not to call and then you have maybe that I don't know well so to accurately Define the problem would be my question if this is one facility that has numerous calls we can deal with one

facility but if all all 10 how many there are facilities in Hendersonville it's an issue we need to establish criteria of how many calls is too many and I think that's what he asked before was the top five if I'm not mistaken and I provided and it was four uh health care facilities and one residence were the top five at that moment that he asked me those top those four were all above SE I think 70 something was the lowest for the year am I right about that I think that's correct I'd have to go back and look so more than once a week for well and I think yeah so I think I don't know I think if he is reasonable for something like that and if it particularly since it's a commercial building that has concentrated a large number of people in one spot to make money and I don't want them to us in the fire department for their fall assist of help me get up um so I don't know I would like to know so we know it's five facility doing 70 calls a year at least four of them one was the resident that Dr can we go talk to those facilities and then monitor it for six months and see what happens we could do whatever again I think an education piece to let them understand what potentially is going to happen if it doesn't slow down some because again we we're we're ready to help and do whatever we need to do and it's a I do think it's a slippery slope but you also want to make sure that we're not just going I mean there's been some conversations with staff um when they go to these facilities that they're not they're instructed not to pick people up well I mean I've worked in healthcare facilities my whole life as a paramedic before I got Chief years ago and when we had patients fall we were certainly responsible for picking them up and getting them back to where they needed to be and you know if that's going to be the response of the facilities then

maybe I would be more apt to I I I do take an opportunity to educate people to say hey what can we do to help cut this down is it a staffing issue that you guys are having that that makes that problem for y'all what what can y'all do to improve that and then also there you know our call volume is going up we may not be available to just come pick up Miss Jones if we got a CPR in progress or another more critical call you're you're keeping us from being able to respond to that while picking up Miss Jones that you guys ought to be able to do and these places are quite profitable if they're injured they're injured and we certainly want to be there to help them and transport them and do whatever absolutely that would be my recommendation is educate them and then re-evaluate it after we've done that I think that's reasonable I think that's reasonable how do you feel about that um I think it's a good idea and I would specifically ask the question what they think we should do for numerous calls to get their input um to solve the problem because it's not everybody abusing the syst true that's helpful so can you get back with us in six nine months absolutely so next item I have on here for chief bush is uh this used to be a bigger problem than it is now um we have some folks that uh need a fire inspection and uh sometimes they call us assuming they're going to be ready when we show up and they aren't always ready when we show up uh they essentially use us as a guide on what to do and what they can get away with what they think they can get away with and it causes our staff to have to go out there second and third time uh it's not really fair to the people who do it right and and that make sure that they have a contractor who knows what they're doing um how much has this been lately I haven't really talked to prevention about that lately uh I know in the previous years it was a problem we'd have scheduled uh inspections to

where we're testing alarm systems sprinkler systems and we get out there and they were not ready or they would fail and then we'd have to turn around reschedule it and take time and staff to come back out and do that so so when you're talking about large square footage facilities it takes a couple of those guys to be there to manage that and so uh lots of people get it right on the first time and then there's a few that don't necessarily get it right the first time and then we end up going the second the third time as the mayor said and uh we're just kind of thinking that you know we'd rather you do it right the first time we understand there may be a knockoff one time every so often but if we have to come a second and third time repeatedly I think that's using resources and staff uh and we should probably charge for that can we not charge a permit fee and this is the fee for our first visit and then if you come a second visit your fee goes up $100 sort of but the permit fee they're paying that through codes right okay so and codes is putting all the inspections together and charging that fee can we not separate it so what what I think maybe we do is maybe we have a schedule on there your second your second inspection for mechanical or electrical fire cost this your third one cost this um if that's the direction you you want us to go um I mean it's something would this be administrative this you the board no I think it'd be administrative um if y'all feel feel strongly about that I think that's something we can do but it's a problem that we haven't talked about that I felt like I should tell you about I mean I think they're just getting you to come out and look the first time that's kind of abusing your resources the first time again we get scheduled they're no to go out there but then when they get out there they fail or they're not ready and then they say oh wait a minute can you come back in two weeks that's not always convenient and you know they want us when they want us right they want us to be there tomorrow to get open um but a lot of times they fail the the inspections and we would rather them focus on getting it right the first time

and call us out and us all be squared away after the first time say a separate fee for your second visit any other thoughts uh currently how do electrical inspections go if I remember right at the time I was pulling electrical permits um we always did it right I never had a second inspection so I don't know what to do with the second inspection whether they charge for it or not um but I've seen in Metro or other jurisdictions that we worked in when I had a business that you know to see a second inspection fee wasn't uncommon I didn't think um but I will back up a little bit we I only one time got red tagged in the 40 years we were in business and it wasn't my fault sobody lawm more hit the junction box but um I can't speak very well the second inspections I've never had one so I don't I don't think it's a problem with the idea of the people that are abusing the system but what would the inspection fee be what is it now or is there a set number yeah so typically your first and second inspections you know sometimes H honest mistakes are made and someone left something off and you know you have to come back a second time third time is not really common so uh we have set up I have set up fee schedules before where you're allowed a second inspection and at your third one there's a separate cost to it and it's usually some factor of how long it takes the employee I mean you can't usually it's a set price so what does an average inspection you know take in terms of time what's that employees cost and then you charge that it's a fee right you're not supposed to make profit on it's just Cost recovery so you figure out a cost recovery rate and then you charge that for like a third inspection

um well I think you pay for your education and if I make a mistake and I paid for a second fee I would remember it better we can do that okay appreciate that help okay that's and that helps the person who hired the people you know get them to do it right the first St yeah we have multiple inspections that we go out and do this so it may be that we want to provide some consistency across how we do all of our inspections because if we do it differently like just say for you know electrical or just for fire than every other type of permit that's something that we have to track and create some inconsistency with how we how we manage the inspections that we do well again I go back to on this how big is the problem because if we're going to charge a fee for the second inpection are we looking at really as incom producing or training the contractors to do it right because for the number of inspections we have second inspections we have how much money would that generate in a year and I'm thinking it wouldn't be that much I'm thinking there's not that many second inspections but I don't know I can gather some of that data from fire prevention if you want me to do that yeah and the other thing we'd want to make sure is so we assess our our fees on cost recovery so if we assumed a you know 20 30 40 50 60% reinspection on the fee originally and some of that already may be built into the original inspection fee where we know that sometimes we're going to go back out a second time because generally we'll aggregate data to say hey how much time have we spend on this activity how how many inspections did we have and then we'll kind of just average it out to to determine the fee in the in the first place so we can go back and look and kind of see what that fee is and say what the numbers are you want to go back a couple years three years yeah the last time we did the fee update we'll see what calculations we're put in there for for our time we can do an evaluation on you know what what the average time is

to go out to do an inspection and and do some analysis and then bring that back to this committee okay sounds you want me to ask like two or three years worth of how many times we've gone out second time third time you want those numbers as well sure okay and is it commercial is it residential I can speak to that it's mostly commercial usually residential folks get it right okay sounds good okay the next one I'd like to deal with uh item F so this is similar to item C but with the police department uh if we have a meth house in Hendersonville and it's cleaned up the bill can be sent Henderson City would not clean up but the bill can be sent to the property owner um we have uh we have court costs to recover the cost the city has uh for people who violate our local laws um but we have some we have some properties that are frequent flyers and um most these are commercial properties and uh we don't have any way to really discourage The Continuous phone calls uh or to recover that cost what we don't want to do is something brought up earlier we don't want to discourage somebody from calling in a legitimate emergency where they need police help um but we also want the property owners to take responsibility for their tenants and in some case that's not happening so I'm ask Chief [Music] Jones so we we looked at overall um the majority of our top 20 call counts are all commercial um but they run the gamut from 911 call to shoplifting to you name it I mean it's we and so for the commercial side I know

that some of our uh top addresses would be like um 204 North Anderson which is Walmart and we get a lot of shoplifting reports from them they're calling in they're either in progress or just left you know that sort of thing so we get a lot of those but you don't want to discourage them from col we don't want to discourage that we don't and then 38 like Boulevard is obviously the streets of indion like we get and that's not broken down by the individual businesses up there but we get a lot of those calls and then the same way when when we're looking at the other side a lot of our apart our call counts are for our apartment complexes but the reason for that is the number of residents is there so it's not all focused on one apartment it's just that address so if we're looking at our top 20 you know we're talking about uh mon Haven um 70 West Main 350 El shackle 1080 West Main um the Aventura there on Indian Lake 231 New Shackle I mean when we're looking at it that's our apartment complexes but tracking it to an individual apartment we we haven't narrowed it down that much we just know that those apartment complexes we're getting those calls uh residential oddly enough um the top two on the list are the short-term rentals uh which I I ran this report in December um and then I ran it again the other day for current um and that was the top two have swapped actually so you know but they're still they're very close to each other in call call count numbers so um one of them that kind of stood out to me was um it was an address out on

saundersville road but it's a actually it's an intersection and our officers have been doing some pretty heavy patrols out there based on one of the other categories on the list for discussion so um and then we we'll see some that that we get a lot of calls out um I looked up a couple of those today and and what we were seeing is and we know what the issue is sometimes it's um we're we're having dealing with somebody that's having some mental issues maybe and so we'll get a large number of 911 calls or just other response calls in general and sometimes it's it's they'll call it in a suspicious person or a suspicious incident and of course to them it's it's real but we get out there and obviously it's not not true but we do have there's a couple of addresses on here that um I'm familiar with and it's just it's based on the incidents going on there um there's one in particular I'm not sure that it's a if it's a rental or an actual residence but we we made frequent trips there so now you did hit the nail on the head is that we don't want to discourage them from choclate for legitimate you know legitimate calls and we do have uh a couple businesses that that I that I have heard that are reluctant to make those calls we have a business looking to move from Davidson County to here that I understand is reluctant to make those calls um we don't want to become a Haven for for for businesses that don't want to prosecute shoplifting at the same time I have a hard time with some of those apartment complexes that were out there all the time um and they need to do a better job they need to be more

responsible I think the apartment complexes and renters we could go contact the homeowner that it's becoming a nuisance if we know how to get a hold of for rental residences we have actually gone down that road a couple of times uh to encourage them that they need to be more selective in their renting or set out some terms for them to what they need to deal with um but that you you know enforcing that is difficult um now if we get multiple and some of these and we kind of try to judge if it's multiple 911 calls um we can charge them with misuse of the 911 system but sometimes if we find someone that's either having some mental problems or elderly we choose not to do that um but if we find out it's it's an issue with abuse of the 911 system we have absolutely charge folks in the past for that and that's you know that's a cable offense it's not it's not a financial charge but it's it is citable can we monitor that for six months sure well it be more specifically I me we've been monitoring it but um so the problem seems to be apartment complexes the question be which unit right well and and what I looked at with the apartment complex we just know that some of them have a higher call volume than others yeah but it's spread out you know I mean and and some of them very obviously they legitimate call their domestics or they you know their uh attempted vehicle burglaries or maybe an actual vehicle burglary and um we find that our apartment complexes have a higher incidence of vehicle burglaries because there's so many vehicles

concentrated at one spot as opposed to the residential areas where you know obviously they're more spread out it's not say we don't have any in residential areas but if they're going to hit one and that's why our officers concentrate a lot of time in there and then and a lot of these calls are self-initiated on the part of the officer so because they spot something out of out of place and they self-generate a call so let me ask this if we were to ask apartment complexes to help us solve this problem what could an apartment complex do I mean even if they hired a security guard would that change anything so some of the apartment complexes in town do give a discounted rate and it may be to to a su County Deputy or a Hendersonville officer that's living there to but they ask them in return for that to make you know walkthroughs of the area and and sometimes it helps sometimes it does not because sometimes it comes down to how willing are the apartment complexes so if we have repeat offenders uh I can tell you 15 years ago apartment complexes were much quicker to provide somebody an eviction notice if if they were generating frequent calls to the police just through their activity they were much quicker to say okay we've had enough of that here's an eviction noce that's much less likely to occur now nowadays than it was 15 or 20 years ago and I'm not sure what the change is I think some of that was the apartment complexes previously had resident managers so the apartment managers lived in the complex they didn't want to have to put up with that either they didn't want that in a place where they lived whereas now what you see is management companies that may not even be based in the state of Tennessee anymore that run these artment complexes yeah and that's

why I was wondering what they would actually do or could do in addition to that but so it's something we can look at um I don't know if there's an easy solution oh there definitely is not and and we've tried we've tried engaging with them you know it's it's interesting so some of our businesses we know a lot of times when there is a change in loss prevention Personnel because when so when they have really good LP Personnel the call count is going to be higher we just know that if don't have really good LP Personnel the call count drops off and it doesn't mean that the shoplifting is not happen it just means they're not as a team and and I will give credit to you know uh businesses some of the businesses excuse me Glenbrook uh Walmart they are very happy to assist and go forward with prosecution um we've had some heart-to- heart conversations with some of the businesses that want to call after the fact but don't want to you know they just want an officer to come take a report but they don't want to assist with prosecution and so we've convinced some of them that it was definitely in their best interest to assist a prosecution we have had instances where they didn't want to we we followed through on the case made an arrest and we just dropped subpoenas on them and they had to come to court at that point we could set up satellite offices at all the uh locations well and we keep officers frequently in the Streets of Indian Lake and uh places that we know of we we have

teams of officers that will focus on Walmart um Lowe's Glenbrook streets V Lake and and their goal is to cut down on the shoplifting to stop that from happening in Hendersonville and and we feel like to some degree that has been effective but partnering up with the businesses where they're very attuned to being involved in the process going through with prosecution um you know that's helped we think that's helped but it just doesn't doesn't put a stop to it there's not an easy solution because you don't want them not to call right okay we'll think on that one okay what's your next so I'd like to talk about homelessness item number a let me pass these up here 10 copy [Music] here uh so we we've had some homeless people in Hendersonville no doubt about that about a year ago maybe a year and a half ago uh found one if you look at the picture on the second page uh there are two homeless camps two there are two tents in that area uh this is behind Walmart other side of the railroad tracks uh it was it it was uh it was essentially a home it's hard to say this person was homeless uh they had two big canopies they had a bed uh shelving uh probably 20 uh tubs of clothing and books and possessions uh and we're fortunately found out about this we've had we've had a handful here and there of of other people that have set up camps obviously we don't want to get to where one of our neighboring counties is uh Supreme Court recently said that if your B if your business is negatively impacted by homeless people you can expect to be you you have an expectation to be compensated uh by by the municipality obviously we don't want to go there

however it just it just emphasizes the responsibility the city has uh really the way that most mostly we uh uh address homelessness is if there is a trespassing violation uh but that that depends on the property owner and in this situation we're fortunate the prop property owner uh is helpful we need the property owner to to give us permission to do that um if they choose not to or you can't get a hold of that person then we have to start looking at zoning violations and what I'm talking about is that if you live in a house that is not zoned as a campground if you have a grocery store that's not zoned uh as a campground and so we have to look at that that's a little bit harder to deal with it's much easier if you can get the property owner to agree that that that is trespassing uh that's only the situation when we have a camp if we have people uh if we have people asking for money uh from people walking by on a sidewalk a little harder there's some First Amendment issues there uh from people pulling out at intersection a little bit harder there as well uh people pushing grocery carts we've had this twice in the past six months people pushing grocery carts one through a park one down gon Road um there's not much illegal going on with that um they probably stole that grocery cart but if the retailer doesn't want to deal with it they may just decide to chop it up to One Less grocery cart and there's not much we can do with that um there are a couple a couple cities that have address that outside of Tennessee that um uh being in possession of a grocery card that is not yours or pushing a grocery card on right away is prohibited that's one way uh if people are pushing a grocery cart and Hendersonville they are probably camped somewhere in Hendersonville that's that's pretty simple um this is be come and is becoming a greater problem for the ring counties around Davidson County uh we

never want to get in a situation we have an encampment and and closing encampments is very very difficult uh because really what you're doing is you're telling them you can't be on this piece of land and they go out to the next piece of land or the next piece of land uh we don't we don't want to be a Haven for homeless people uh I'm not saying that homeless people commit crimes but where there are homeless encampments it is a crime magnet and it may not be them committing the crime but it invites crime so uh Chief Jones you want to talk a little bit about how we deal with how we deal with this so as the mayor said somebody walking down the road or pushing a grocery car right now there's not a lot we can do about that however we do uh if we find so we do have a current city ordinance a camping overnight City Hendersonville is prohibited so we we've used that statute uh obviously the our Park closed at 11: PM so we have officers that will look for that and run people out of the parks because they're not allowed to be in the park after 11: PM for any reason so um camping is is absolutely prohibited and we've used that in several instances um in in the Parks um one of the incident you know issues we've run is so the linear Park is not actually city property however even though it's not city property you still not allowed to Camp so when they find them they they'll tell them you've got to move on you cannot stay in the city overnight and they recommend you know there's there shelters in Nashville some of them don't want to make use of that but that's what we recommend to them is that they seek assistance from the the homeless shelters in Nashville um and so the biggest thing we can do our our two biggest ways to come back there at this

point is the trespassing statute Andor the uh camping Prohibition in the city of pville are there any ordinances or anything that we could do uh to help that uh I think so like the mayor said and and very correctly we we've identified a shopping C from the store and they're like yeah okay whatever they're they're not interested and it's not you know it's it's they're not interested in following up on that so it makes it difficult for us to do anything um one of the issues with panh handling that we've had you know we've dealt with is uh we've used looked at it from the standpoint of traffic that you can't impede the flow of traffic so you know you can't be out in the road collecting donations because that creates a a public safety hazard uh so we've tried to look you know we've tried to be creative in ways that we look to to stop some of that um but sometimes it's an issue of just finding those folks um you know and a couple times we've had reports where people thought there may be people camping or staying um and one I'm actually involved with cor Engineers property well the core is very much interested in prohibiting that so between between us and the Corb Engineers we checked a pretty large area and found no evidence of that so I'm not sure where that information had come from but but we do know there's there's some folks that are staying in the city and we may not be exactly sure where they're staying at so sometimes it's just a matter of finding them so that we can get them to move on um as far as an ordinance I don't have anything off the top of my head that would that would help with that I mean it's a problem that a lot of cities for facing I think

as mayor mentioned we do not want large homeless encampments because it it creates lots of problems and some of them are just from a public health standard you know that's going to be an issue um so we do have folks call in sometimes to to let us know about that um our officers will absolutely check on people sleeping in a car are um to one just to make sure they're okay but I mean we have again at the point if they're in a parking lot sleeping in a car that could be considered camping and so that's kind of how we've approached that at this point Chief Bush mentioned something I didn't think about but when you've got when you start in the camp when you start talking about two three or four or more they're going to get more calls can we so in Hendersonville because we talked earlier about Hendersonville is not growing um landwise how did we discover the two this here it's a guy with a drone he had gotten a drone for a gift took it out and flew it and thought so I don't know if you can see both of them one is blue and one is brown yeah they're not they're probably 30 yards far from each other uh and he found him and he emailed me a video and uh it's it's it had probably been there it had to be multiple multiple weeks is that Walmart property ium it was it was well hold on let me think it's behind Walmart but it's before remember Trace went up and helped with it I know that he did and our officers are out there um was it the Indian Lake business Owners Association that may be what it was it

may be any like business owner association owns that Str proper but I can't cuz there's been some some changing on who owns what out there so I I think that may have been who it was I don't remember exactly but I know they weren't happy about it either we have a yeah it was and it was I remember this Henry Pucket he's the he's the uh manager for that fortunately he's local and we know him and so we were able to get out there he he was very helpful when we were having the issue because we talked to him about the issues with the linear part yeah and so he was he was very up that we had another one not too long ago um behind Cash Saver uh down down the hill a little bit into the woods okay so let me ask this question could we identify Parcels of land well how much land is there that they could come in here and camp on and watch those areas but I think we do need to pass an ordinance that we're not allowing encampments just so we have something in place to prevent it and we need to strengthen that later do it okay but yeah I mean I'm thinking how many places can I go camp in Hendersonville and not be seen for a week you'd be surprised really we're so our officers we we've made it a point to make sure our officers are very wor to keep because we had we had heard from some citizens to keep checking the park um and especially some of the more out of the way areas in the Parks whether it's Saunders F or Drake Creek or you know because there are areas where you probably could be without being seen or being noticed and so we we've asked them to increase their checks on those areas

just to make sure you know uh that that's not occurring I mean there's the section over by saundersi Road uh behind U well it be behind like Five Guys in that area over there where the the walking trails are and some of that those areas over there we're still a little wooded yeah but it's not developed and so you know asking them to keep an extra aisle and that and some of that comes in from citizens too I forgot about the AR read by Walton fairy we had evidence over there three four years ago back along the lake so so could we do an ordinance for that uh to band encampments I can talk to Lance and see what that looks like we can what we' do is we' look and see what other cities have have done that seems to have worked uh so by the way we have a a wonderful uh resource now is that we now that our ordinances are on a platform that's online we can search every other City's ordinances by in its index to see what they have passed and you see down here on the the you see four uh links right there that's how we got those we did a search uh there and we got about uh shopping CS which when when you mentioned that the one thing I think about is the and I don't know his name the guy that walks around Hendersonville with the sign from Rivergate to Hendersonville up and down new sh Island Road and he's not homeless well that's I'd heard that everything i' heard just been from other people but I've never met the guy but lives down new he sometimes pulls a cart that's not a grocery cart but you could put groceries in it and I guess that gets turns into interpretation right probably have to Define that somehow so okay well and you know and so the other issue with that is there there's some folks that you know they pull a little it's not an actual grocery C or like a Walmart car

but they're I mean we have some people that do walk to and from the stores and they're literally taking their groceries home in one of those cars and I don't I don't and you know our officers are not going to be stopping those folks just because they choose to be a pedestrian instead of motorized but you know when you see somebody pushing a uh shopping cart that's filled to overflowing and it's not I just went to Walmart you you pretty well know what's going on so I think it's fairly easy for our officers to make that distinction and be you know again it comes in using some common sense when you're doing that so we can look into that with Lance question uh you said Tennessee has restrictions against overnight parking at rest stops uh what would it how difficult would it be to ask the state to add two rest stops public parks and make it State W it would be difficult at all to ask uh right now what do we what do we do chief if someone's parking in our Parks overnight well so the par parks are are posted that they close at 11:00 p.m. and the and so if you're if you're in a car in the park or if you're in the park period after 11:00 p.m. we're going to run you out because that's trespassing in the city park the only exceptions to that and and we've dealt with this before is the boat ramps and like sa stay Park are like Rockland park closes also however by Statute allowed to be in the park to access fishing or launching a boat so if we have somebody that's fishing sitting on the bank fishing at 2 o'clock in the morning they're they're fine you can't be in your car sleeping at 2 o'clock in the morning claim you're

waiting to go fishing because that's not going to work so we have sufficient authority to keep people from parking in the Parks all night and sleeping yes sir we we we we have sufficient Authority for that we do do we have sufficient Authority about now I would think that pushing a buggy a cart down a rideway could cause traffic problems could cause accidents it could but usually what we'll find is they're par pushing them on the sidewalk they're not out in the roadway and so and I was going to add too we have so we are under contract with the core of engineers so anything we do on core property they're going to back us because they contract with us to do that with the city to do that and so we're very familiar with their rules and regulations too and what they allow and don't allow and they pretty much uh and we've actually asked for some rule changes from them and they were very quick to grant that because they you know we wanted them to more closely align with what the city ordinances already were so that it's kind of uniform so what or statute did you exercise in getting these people off this property uh two different ones trespassing and camping in the city of limits T the property owner have to have to uh file charges on trespassing or can you do it without the O owner's Authority I don't remember the specific one uh we have a trespass waiver form which basically the property owner and that's the one the mayor was talking about with Mr Pucket we had him sign one for the linear Park so what it basically says is if you're in violation the officer can charge you with trespasses so we will do that and I

don't remember on that one specifically uh which one we used um or if we Ed both of them but I mean I I'm willing as one Al to give you the tools that you need to address this but y'all have to come to us y y'all were the experts we we get pretty creative sometimes so I think we use like I said I we we got the property owner involved and they were they were agreeable that we use trespassing and I think we use the overnight camping ordinance to dismantle that okay particular location thank you D you're welcome and he wanted to go to vape shops next but who's going to take that Chief Jones I can talk about it I'm not I'm not sure what I was hoping the mayor still be here cuz I'm not sure what the issue was was with that um so we do have several vape shops in town uh when we do um we do alcohol buy stings and tobacco sales stings in for businesses here in town and I know that they have been checked frequently for underage sales of tobacco or vape products have you issued any sitations for that do you know we have um and I couldn't tell you which ones it was um some of those some of the vape shops sell tobacco Vape products and alcohol so they they may get hit on all three but some of the vape shops only sell um vaping products or tobacco products so that would only and the mayor's back and all that we're on the B okay super so let me hand this out to you um uh the general assembly has a uh has an organization that they put together together and that's called the Tennessee advisory Commission on inter-government relations you might have heard me talk about

Tasser reports every once in a while uh and it's it's to to look at problems and try to come up with the recommended solutions they looked at at vaping in Tennessee seeing that it is a significant problem in Tennessee and that Tennessee is ranking among the top as far as as far as the number of uh miners that are vaping and the destructive impact it's having uh so different states have tried uh have tried different approaches um the whole idea of a being started out is this is an alternative to smoking cigarettes therefore it's healthier um that is sort of true when it started uh but when it got to the flavored vaping uh it really started encouraging more people to do this than the people the number of people would actually smoked uh and the flavor vaping is definitely more appealing to uh uh to um to uh to kids so the task report has some recommendations for the state to take but they also U mentioned a couple things that cities can do and if you look on the page let's see I don't have these numbers page the third page um you see some possible solutions and it mentions what Goodletsville has done um currently vaping products they're they're not really regulated as Vape products and the state is looking at changing that but very similar to what we do with liquor stores we could do with VAP products um and keep in mind that a you know a grocery store could sell Vape products you don't really have to be a vape store like you're a liquor store uh so um we could have a restriction for how many or how close all the Vape Vape sellers are to each other as well as how close the VAP

seller is to a school we don't really have that right um we could restrict them to certain zones right now they're in pretty much uh General commercial um a lot of commercial and Industrial we could restrict them to just industrial or just a specific commercial uh and that would that would reduce the number number that we have goodl Luvs ordinance is in here um Keith fre is is working on seeing how that could be how this ordinance could be adjusted to fit our zoning ordinances um and it's I think it's something worth pursuing and if you look at some of the Tasser report bullet bullet points um it's it tells me that it's time that that cities pay attention to this so do you recommend that we wait for Keith to get back with us and then draft some ordinances um yes but I also would like some direction of how do you how do you want to restrict them if you do want to restrict them do you want to restrict them that they have to be a th000 feet from each other do you want to restrict they have to be th000 feet from each other and a th000 feet from a school or do you want to restrict that as well as they have to be industrial or the number of them and if we restrict them by the number that are allowed within the city what do you do what I mean it seems like there's a vape shop on every corner so are they grandfathered they would be grandfathered until we get down to the maximum number that we actually and even if we change the zoning at this point they're still Grand they would so but it would have a big impact for the ones coming I definitely think and I did explain it we included while you were out that we include those when we do alcohol stings and we do uh the stings related to sales of tobacco and Vapor Products to underage persons and so when that when they do those things we have a list that we provide to the city

recorder both with alcohol and tobacco of Who Sold who was who who refused to sell follow the law Who Sold who was cited and of course if they're cited not only do they have to go into General Session Court but the holder of the beer license has to appear before the beer board for the city of henville there's not a specific license of regulation for the sales of tobacco and V products I would like to get an ordinance maybe to restrict them and see if we could even increase our uh uh sting uper you know the underage now to just try and scare these people that you know we coming a lot more often right now it is a big problem one of the things this report encourages the state to do is to make it mandatory to uh ask for ID for people for person buying a v product it's mandatory for I'm pretty sure for alcohol and beer uh but it's not mandatory somebody walks in and this and the person cash register thinks they look like 40 okay but that's why this is happening much more because it's not mandatory check for all I'm surprised they haven't done that because it's mandatory for tobacco products yeah so you would think that it would be for for V I personally would like to see us draft using the maximum Authority we have from the state okay to PR Pro to PR prevent the growth and to regulate the grandfa so whatever is the maximum Authority that we would have and what about flavored Vapes that's that's what's real first of all I think Robert Kennedy Jr may take care of this at the federal level but if he's concerned but uh does the state allow flavored Vapes so for children Tennessee is very similar to a lot of other states is that they they find a product that should be banned and they take action against it

and then China puts it under a different manufacturing name and puts it under a different product name and the state can't keep up um there's a couple States you you'll see this in the bullet points there's a couple states that say okay they're all banned except for the ones that are on this list that's the way Louisiana does it and they are much more successful that you if you have an item that you want to sell as a vape product you have to give it approved before it's for available for sale and and answer your question all Vape products here regardless flavored non-flavored they are all illegal to sell to miners well I know per but the enticements there if you flavor them so I wouldn't be opposed you know depending on what Lance said of us asking our legislative delegation to to to to strengthen vaping laws in the state as well so do an ordinance uh exercising maximum Authority that the state gives us and continue to sting operations as the chairman said okay and uh then also uh consider with our lobbyists of of filing a bill or working with is it tml uh tml hasn't really taken a stand on this but um uh shoot there's another organization oh it's the uh Heart and Lung folks uh there's a CO Coalition of Heart and Lung organizations that are involved this people that came a year ago yeah that's right that's right would probably help us as well um my mind's gone blank of his name and her name but yes um I'm in agreement with the strict as we can be okay stre parking that's a whole meeting okay we'll skip it yeah do you want to do feeding Wildlife sure that's uh so I think some of youall may know that we had a uh we had a a resident recently that had hundreds of

cats that the resident was feeding um it was a problem for the Neighbors it was a problem for nearby Property Owners um and uh she had so many citations that Chief Edwards had to schedule special session uh me judge Edwards judge Edwards yeah um so we have so we have cats we also have some people that feed skunks obviously feed deer um and it becomes uh it becomes it be it's attractive to wild animals sometimes they're trying to feed a squirrel but in reality they're feeding deer and they're feeding skunks and they're feeding raccoons uh and and in especially in the situation with the cats it's become a problem one thing judge Edward says it's hard to tell people they they can feed a squirrel but they can't feed a deer uh and I remember asking somebody one time well do you do you feed the deer and her answer was not intentionally so one of the things that that Russ suggested and I haven't really looked into this a whole heck of a lot that what he thinks would be a good idea is um if you have food outside it must be contained either you have a fence around your patio or you have a fence around your yard and if you don't if you are offering food outside and you don't have you know you don't have a fence around there that you're in violation you want my opinion that's why I came here I totally disagree okay and here's my reason okay one I think it's way overreach but two I have a lot of bird feeders I enjoy feeding the birds okay the birds not the seed on the ground I'll get a skunk every now and then so you're going to tell me you're gon to come find me we're going to have a

problem what do you want me to do with this I mean that's my you know people be Birds you're going to get animals we live in the city with lots of animals I see it as an individual problem and should be handled on an individual basis and I mean because I'm thinking if I'm going to start feeding the deer and they're coming to my backyard I know who's going to complain first I mean I know which neighbor is going to complain first it'll eventually be all of them if I'm feeding animals but it's yeah and it can be then I can meet Chief Jones and get to know him a little bit better we did have a lady that was she was dumping 25 pounds of shell corn on the ground and she said it was just for the squirrels and so we explained to her that that appeared very much to be feeding deer which was illegal in the city and she was very nice and agreed that she would not do that anymore so and so it's U the the problem we have I can tell you too is the the potential for not geese so much although they cause their own problems but for skunks raccoons and other animals to be carrying rapes yeah and and that's issue and so um you know we've tried to do a lot through education just with a deer but that extends to feeding other wild animals because you know a lot of people that that their reason for doing it is their love of wildlife yeah well but what you know we've explained to them is you're actually doing more harm to these wild animals because what happens is that they become dependent on that person as a food source and they lose the ability to forage for food as they were intended to do then what happens is if that food source is cut off then that animal can't survive and so that's you know and literally the education part of

what we've done we've tried to focus even with the deer her is to focus more on education than actual citation we've had to site some folks because they just refused but some of them just didn't really realize the problem they were causing and so with the education piece um they kind of scaled back on that but um and I think that would be probably the majority of the cases they don't know they're causing a problem they think they're feeding the squirrels what they think the the deer feeders we have several folks just keep doing it and their neighbors call me constantly we send our Animal Control I give your phone doesn't sound like y'all want me to prop make any proposals on this I don't I think it's no okay all right street parking is uh pretty involved I mean it's it's a long long discuss a special probably SOA so would you like to make a motion motion to adjourn I'll second all in favor all right thank you